By Sam Reeves
FRANKFURT, Germany, March 19, 2024 (AFP) – Two Afghans linked to the Islamic State group were arrested in Germany on Tuesday on suspicion of planning an attack around Sweden’s parliament in retaliation for Koran burnings, prosecutors said.
The men, identified as Ibrahim M.G. and Ramin N., were detained in the Gera area of eastern Germany, the federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement.
Last summer, the first, an IS member, was tasked by the jihadist group with carrying out an attack in Europe in response to Koran burnings in Sweden, it said.
He is accused of plotting along with Ramin N. “to use firearms to kill police officers and other people in the area of the Swedish parliament in Stockholm”, prosecutors said.
“The pair made concrete preparations for this in close consultation with officials” from a regional branch of IS, the prosecutors added.
“In particular, they researched conditions around the possible crime scene on the internet and tried several times — albeit unsuccessfully — to procure weapons.”
Karin Lutz, a spokeswoman for Sweden’s intelligence service Sapo, confirmed to AFP that they had been working with German police, but declined to give further details.
Sweden and neighbouring Denmark last year saw a spate of public desecrations of the Koran, including burnings, mainly by immigration opponents, which sparked widespread outrage in Muslim countries.
In August, Sweden’s intelligence service Sapo raised its threat level to four on a scale of five.
Two months later, two Swedish football fans were killed in a “terror attack” in Brussels, which was carried out by a Tunisian living illegally in Belgium, ahead of a Belgium-Sweden international match.
– Latest plot foiled –
In the latest case in Germany, both suspects are accused of plotting to commit a crime. Ibrahim M.G. is suspected of having supported and of having been a member of a terrorist organisation.
Ramin N. is accused of having supported a terrorist organisation.
Prior to the plot, they are also accused of having collected around 2,000 euros ($2,170) for IS in Germany.
It was sent to the group via intermediaries and was intended to support imprisoned IS members in northern Syria.
They are also accused of breaking regulations on making foreign payments.
It is just the latest plot targeting Sweden to be foiled in Germany.
In October, German prosecutors charged two Syrian brothers for planning an attack inspired by the IS group at a church in Sweden over Koran burnings.
Islamist extremists have also committed several violent attacks in Germany in recent years, the deadliest being a truck rampage at a Berlin Christmas market in December 2016 that killed 12 people.
In another case, an extremist and his wife were jailed in 2020 for planning a biological bomb attack in Germany with the deadly poison ricin.
